Loki (2021)

[JadedDM]

I’ve often wondered why Stark didn’t spray nanofoam up Thanos’ nose and into his airways to solidify his lungs from the inside out.

Probably the same reason Antman didn't just shrink, climb up Thanos' butt and then expand.

[Psyren]

Looking at the nanofoam scene again I don't see anything approaching that level of fine control/aiming. At best he'd have garnished or coated Thanos' head. It also froze from the outside so this tactic may not have worked in-atmo even had he thought of it.

(Is that the same foam he uses later to patch up his stab wound?)

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Keltest
I cant imagine that Thanos would politely hold still for that to happen.

Never said that he would. But if everyone can immobilize him long enough for Stark and Peter to try pulling off the gauntlet with brute force, surely they can immobilize him long enough for Stark to spray his nostrils at point-blank range.

Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga
I now want to see a nanotech facehugger drone that sprays the nanofoam.

Even better. If Stark can whip up an independent gizmo that latches onto Thanos’ hand to keep it open, surely he can create one to latch onto Thanos’ face and inject the nanofoam.

[Anteros]

Never said that he would. But if everyone can immobilize him long enough for Stark and Peter to try pulling off the gauntlet with brute force, surely they can immobilize him long enough for Stark to spray his nostrils at point-blank range.



Even better. If Stark can whip up an independent gizmo that latches onto Thanos’ hand to keep it open, surely he can create one to latch onto Thanos’ face and inject the nanofoam.

Sure, or they use a portal to drop him into the sun while he's asleep. Or cut off his hand. Or a million other solutions that would have totally worked except didn't because "reasons" that the audience has to ignore to make the scene work.

Turning off your brain to make the scene work has always been an intrinsic part of the MCU experience.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Anteros
Turning off your brain to make the scene work has always been an intrinsic part of the MCU experience.

True on the face of it, but “don’t think about it because you’re not supposed to” never did stop me from thinking.

[Rakaydos]

Sure, or they use a portal to drop him into the sun while he's asleep. Or cut off his hand. Or a million other solutions that would have totally worked except didn't because "reasons" that the audience has to ignore to make the scene work.

...reasons being that HWR needed Stark to invent time travel tech for Nathanial Richards to rediscover to start Kang's multiversal war which HWR wins. Every timeline in which the snap does not happen, gets pruned. Every timeline where Stark does not survive, gets pruned. And Strange knew it, if he was trying his close time loop trick and the TVA kept showing up.

[Anteros]

...reasons being that HWR needed Stark to invent time travel tech for Nathanial Richards to rediscover to start Kang's multiversal war which HWR wins. Every timeline in which the snap does not happen, gets pruned. Every timeline where Stark does not survive, gets pruned. And Strange knew it, if he was trying his close time loop trick and the TVA kept showing up.

Yeah....if a scene needs a retcon from another show three years later to make sense...I'm gonna go ahead and call say it's not terribly well constructed.

[Psyren]

"We learned new information" != "retcon."

[Tyndmyr]

I’ve often wondered why Stark didn’t spray nanofoam up Thanos’ nose and into his airways to solidify his lungs from the inside out.

If Stark can use nanofoam to patch the hull of a violently depressurizing alien starship, he should be able to suffocate Thanos with the stuff.

His tech has been pretty amazing. And they did lean pretty hard on "hit him harder" as a strategy. Dr Strange was pretty much the only one to actually get creative with his powers. Trying to suffocate him seems like a decent thing to try. It doesn't necessarily have to work, but I do enjoy fight scenes with creativity.

[Sholos]

Pretty much every comic book fight ever has an element of, "Why didn't Character X do Y," and it never seems to occur to the asker that the answer is they didn't think about it. Especially if it's some off-the-wall tactic that they've never done before.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Sholos
Pretty much every comic book fight ever has an element of, "Why didn't Character X do Y," and it never seems to occur to the asker that the answer is they didn't think about it.

Except that Tony Stark is supposed to be a hyperintelligent visionary, and we know that he’s been thinking intensively about alien-invasion scenarios for years.

So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect him to have more creative strategies than “punch harder.”

[Psyren]

Except that Tony Stark is supposed to be a hyperintelligent visionary, and we know that he’s been thinking intensively about alien-invasion scenarios for years.

So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect him to have more creative strategies than “punch harder.”

1) He did. In both the initial gambit that Quill messed up and the one-on-one fight, Tony was quite creative. Thanos overwhelmed him with force (including several direct hits from the Power stone - a planet-buster I'll remind you), severely damaging his suit in the process.

2) How long can Thanos hold his breath? As long as Thor, who could survive for hours in hard vacuum? As long as Hulk? Longer?

Rather than assuming Tony didn't think of something and was dumb for it, I find it more valuable to assume he did think of it and rejected it as pointless (which it very likely would have been.) *points at sig*

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Except that Tony Stark is supposed to be a hyperintelligent visionary, and we know that he’s been thinking intensively about alien-invasion scenarios for years.

So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect him to have more creative strategies than “punch harder.”

My big complaint with Tony in that movie wasn’t the ‘punching harder’ problem, it was the ‘let’s fly this spaceship back to where the bad guy expects it to be, he’ll never see that coming!’ bit before they actually got into the fight.

We could handwave away the in-battle tactics - Stark’s only got one known quantity on his side at that point, the Guardians of the Galaxy don’t really do plans, and he’s on a planet that doesn’t have his satellites in orbit, any of which might have hampered his combat effectiveness - but when you purposely take yourself out of reach of your known allies and most of your resources to put yourself in that situation in the first place…

[Delicious Taffy]

Except that Tony Stark is supposed to be a hyperintelligent visionary, and we know that he’s been thinking intensively about alien-invasion scenarios for years.

So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect him to have more creative strategies than “punch harder.”

Sure, he's a real smart cookie, nobody's gonna deny that. But what's more important is that it's impossible to have a prepared response for everything on-hand and in the front of your mind. Tony's armor is also more or less built for a "hit harder" strategy, even if the hardest hits are extra flashy. Even DIO got caught off-guard and outmaneuvered.

[Ramza00]

They had a teleportation guy with time manipulation, and they decided not to use either to make the fight be impossible to lose

Many people were holding the "idiot-stick" in infinity war. They could have always restocked and bring the best armors to Titan, they choose not to do so.

[Keltest]

They had a teleportation guy with time manipulation, and they decided not to use either to make the fight be impossible to lose

Many people were holding the "idiot-stick" in infinity war. They could have always restocked and bring the best armors to Titan, they choose not to do so.

As i recall, Doctor Strange playing willy nilly with the time stone was declared a big no-no back in his own movie, and that using it to come to bargain was very much a "reality is going to fundamentally break anyway" moment if it didnt work.

[DigoDragon]

They had a teleportation guy with time manipulation, and they decided not to use either to make the fight be impossible to lose

To be fair to the Teleporting Time Guy, he did look into several million futures to see what plan of action was going to win against Thanos. I would assume that if teleporting and time manipulation was going to help make the fight impossible to lose, he would have done so. :3

My big complaint with Tony in that movie wasn’t the ‘punching harder’ problem, it was the ‘let’s fly this spaceship back to where the bad guy expects it to be, he’ll never see that coming!’ bit before they actually got into the fight.

While I agree that it was a dumb idea, it wasn't out of character for Tony to do that plan. This is the same impulsive Tony that immediately attacked Thor in the first Avengers movie when Thor grabbed Loki from the jet.

[Wookieetank]

As i recall, Doctor Strange playing willy nilly with the time stone was declared a big no-no back in his own movie, and that using it to come to bargain was very much a "reality is going to fundamentally break anyway" moment if it didnt work.

And even then he gets called out on using it. Outside of Doctor Strange and Vision, most every usage of an infinity stone is portrayed as a bad thing, or at best morally gray (shield's tesseract tech).

[GloatingSwine]

And even then he gets called out on using it. Outside of Doctor Strange and Vision, most every usage of an infinity stone is portrayed as a bad thing, or at best morally gray (shield's tesseract tech).

Mar-Vell creating a new type of lightspeed engine was portrayed positively.

The thing about the Infinity Stones is that in general it's bad people that wanted them.

[Wookieetank]

Mar-Vell creating a new type of lightspeed engine was portrayed positively.

The thing about the Infinity Stones is that in general it's bad people that wanted them.

Fair point. Forgot about the lightspeed engine using the cube.

[Psyren]

My big complaint with Tony in that movie wasn’t the ‘punching harder’ problem, it was the ‘let’s fly this spaceship back to where the bad guy expects it to be, he’ll never see that coming!’ bit before they actually got into the fight.

We could handwave away the in-battle tactics - Stark’s only got one known quantity on his side at that point, the Guardians of the Galaxy don’t really do plans, and he’s on a planet that doesn’t have his satellites in orbit, any of which might have hampered his combat effectiveness - but when you purposely take yourself out of reach of your known allies and most of your resources to put yourself in that situation in the first place…

Tony was trying to keep the time stone off Earth by not flying back there. Thanos wouldn't be above leveling a city to get them to turn it over, or just heavy collateral damage in general.

No doubt they'd have tried to do the same with the Mind Stone if the means of separating it from Vision weren't in Wakanda.

To be fair to the Teleporting Time Guy, he did look into several million futures to see what plan of action was going to win against Thanos. I would assume that if teleporting and time manipulation was going to help make the fight impossible to lose, he would have done so. :3

Also that.

Mar-Vell creating a new type of lightspeed engine was portrayed positively.

She made it for the military, they just didn't get a chance to figure out what to do with it yet. It's not like they were going to hand it over to the postal service.

[Anteros]

Honestly, Thanos probably doesn't even need to breathe. If Thor and Loki can survive without oxygen others probably can as well.

As i recall, Doctor Strange playing willy nilly with the time stone was declared a big no-no back in his own movie, and that using it to come to bargain was very much a "reality is going to fundamentally break anyway" moment if it didnt work.

He tries to use it twice in this very movie though? Once against Maw and once to see the future.

[Ramza00]

To be fair to the Teleporting Time Guy, he did look into several million futures to see what plan of action was going to win against Thanos. I would assume that if teleporting and time manipulation was going to help make the fight impossible to lose, he would have done so. :3

Fair, but here is the thing about assumptions, at any time I can pull an anchorman to the camera and say "I don't believe you."

And I am saying I do not believe it, but that is okay I turned off my brain and I know there is a storyteller pulling the strings and sometimes giving me bullocks rationalizations much like my parents did when I was 6.

Tony was trying to keep the time stone off Earth by not flying back there. Thanos wouldn't be above leveling a city to get them to turn it over, or just heavy collateral damage in general.

No doubt they'd have tried to do the same with the Mind Stone if the means of separating it from Vision weren't in Wakanda.

They have a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" to be a gopher. They record instructions, addresses, etc into Karen or whatever they are calling the Friday replacement, and they tell Peter to go find Wong and to go find Pepper, and Wong provides the return trip. Ironically all this stuff is in New York, Peter's home turf!

Then Strange does his time divination, including rewinding time and doing it again and again since we do not know if the Time Stone has any limits like a limited amount of fuel, the person who is using it needs to sleep, etc.

Tony even wanted his surrogate son to be safe earlier in the trip with the big giant space ring. He changed his mind, but I bet he would be okay with a "reloading" trip since worse case scenario Peter is safe, and best case scenario they get more firepower to perform their 1 chance combat encounter.

[GloatingSwine]

She made it for the military, they just didn't get a chance to figure out what to do with it yet. It's not like they were going to hand it over to the postal service.

She made it for the Skrull refugees, so they could escape beyond the reach of the Kree.

[Psyren]

They have a "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" to be a gopher. They record instructions, addresses, etc into Karen or whatever they are calling the Friday replacement, and they tell Peter to go find Wong and to go find Pepper, and Wong provides the return trip. Ironically all this stuff is in New York, Peter's home turf!

Then Strange does his time divination, including rewinding time and doing it again and again since we do not know if the Time Stone has any limits like a limited amount of fuel, the person who is using it needs to sleep, etc.

Tony even wanted his surrogate son to be safe earlier in the trip with the big giant space ring. He changed his mind, but I bet he would be okay with a "reloading" trip since worse case scenario Peter is safe, and best case scenario they get more firepower to perform their 1 chance combat encounter.

A gopher to where? There's nowhere on earth they could stash the thing that Thanos wouldn't eventually find it. Tony's call was logical.

She made it for the Skrull refugees, so they could escape beyond the reach of the Kree.

I'm aware, but that's obviously not what she told the Air Force when they paid for it, let her use the Cube to make it, and loaned her two of their top pilots to test drive it.

My point is that it's premature to conclude it would have all ended up sunshine and roses even if the thing hadn't quite literally blown up in Carol's face.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm aware, but that's obviously not what she told the Air Force when they paid for it, let her use the Cube to make it, and loaned her two of their top pilots to test drive it.

My point is that it's premature to conclude it would have all ended up sunshine and roses even if the thing hadn't quite literally blown up in Carol's face.

I mean there's a difference between "this could have gone wrong for unspecified reason" and "this was presented as a bad thing to do".

Mar-Vell's use of the Space stone was presented as altruistic in intent, and her intent and actions were not presented as being naive or otherwise inappropriate.

[Ramza00]

A gopher to where? There's nowhere on earth they could stash the thing that Thanos wouldn't eventually find it. Tony's call was logical.

I was saying fight on Titan, but bringing in all those extra armors Tony has stashed through a Stephen Strange / Wong gate so Tony has more firepower. It has been 5 years since Iron Man 3 with the House Party Protocol, bring over a Hulkbuster armor with you if you are going to go against the Mad Titan (plus 100 other more dakka)

Bring the kitchen sink. What is the line from The Wire? "You come at the king, you best not miss."

My point here is this is a secular struggle, there is no ultimate God providing providence saying there will be "redemptive energy" making sure the Hero lives, and through the hero "justice will prevail" restoring the goodness of the world.

-----

Except 3 years later with different writers we learn there is a god. He is He Who Remains, he is a normal human, going by the name "Mr. Richards" and he is worse than Hitler

And we can't stab him without thinking things through

[Psyren]

I was saying fight on Titan, but bringing in all those extra armors Tony has stashed through a Stephen Strange / Wong gate so Tony has more firepower. It has been 5 years since Iron Man 3 with the House Party Protocol, bring over a Hulkbuster armor with you if you are going to go against the Mad Titan (plus 100 other more dakka)

You mean the "extra suits" he blew up in IM3?

And if the one using literal nanotech could only get a drop of blood from Thanos I doubt the older clunkers would have made a difference either.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

While I agree that it was a dumb idea, it wasn't out of character for Tony to do that plan. This is the same impulsive Tony that immediately attacked Thor in the first Avengers movie when Thor grabbed Loki from the jet.

Can't really argue with this since I don't disagree.

I was saying fight on Titan, but bringing in all those extra armors Tony has stashed through a Stephen Strange / Wong gate so Tony has more firepower. It has been 5 years since Iron Man 3 with the House Party Protocol, bring over a Hulkbuster armor with you if you are going to go against the Mad Titan (plus 100 other more dakka)

Ground-based stuff like the costume cannon in Avengers HQ could have been doable. Not sure about the Hulkbuster satellite or anything in orbit - what's the speed of an orbiting satellite? I feel like that could cause complications. The sling ring instructions in Dr. Strange were to visualize the destination but the Iron Spider suit probably has some sort of photo capabilities since its predecessor did, so maybe Stark could include pictures of all the stuff he wanted moved.

But all of that - finding Wong, talking to Pepper, explaining the plan to everyone, getting the stuff in place - takes a sufficient amount of time (Infinity War was, what, a couple of days from beginning to end, tops?) I'm still inclined to think he'd be better off going to them than the other way around, and take the time instead to grab every superhero and military power that could be mustered for backup.

Or, failing that, take the ship off into a completely random direction, so Thanos and his posse at least have to look for them.

But do not hand-deliver the Maguffin directly to the Big Bad.

[Lizard Lord]

The Loki thread has once again forgotten that it is the Loki thread.